The following is the third in a seven-part series on American energy security by U.S. Representative Jo Ann Emerson.

“There is a direct correlation between the gas tank and the pocketbook of the American family – when the tank in the family car is full, our pockets can quickly go empty.  $50 fill-ups at our service stations are commonplace.

Nowhere is the high cost of gasoline felt more than in rural America.  We do a lot of driving: to work, to school, to the grocery store, to the pharmacy, on vacation and so on.  High and unstable prices of gas can be crippling to the family budget, not just at the pump, but because the price of every good and service we consume reflects the cost of energy inputs.

For the past six weeks, average retail gasoline prices in the Midwest have bounced between $2.84 and $3.17.  Recently, I paid just over $2.50 in Cape Girardeau.

We have to stop the cycle of energy prices that cripples our family budgets.

The average American family spends between $300 and $400 each month on the purchase of gasoline.  In rural areas, we’re at the upper end of that spectrum.  Also remember that this figure only includes the direct costs of transportation.  In addition to that amount, a portion of every good and service we pay for contains the indirect costs of fuel.

Ethanol is a viable, important, and exciting answer.  Not only is ethanol an environmentally-responsible fuel with lower emissions than regular unleaded gasoline, it also comes from a stable resource in the Midwest – and not the MidEast.

 
The Department of Energy finds that ethanol produces a net energy benefit, creating ten units of energy for every seven required as inputs on the farm and in the refinery.  Even more important, every ten units of ethanol energy only require one unit of fossil fuel input.  Ethanol is extremely efficient at replacing a proportional amount of energy in our economy.  Cellulosic ethanol is even more efficient. 

As alternative fuel technologies improve, the production costs of all kinds of ethanol will go down.  And, as the costs of production get smaller, the full effect will be passed along to the pump.  The production of ethanol is simply not dependent on the price of oil.

Right now, countless feedstocks are in development for ethanol.  Everything from switchgrass to corn stalks (also called corn stover) to rice straw to small-diameter trees can be used to produce ethanol.  All that’s required is an enzyme which is specifically geared to “eat” a natural product and produce ethanol from it.  Today, corn is the leading input for ethanol, accounting for 98 percent of ethanol feedstock, but these other new technologies are catching up and even more are in development.

Ethanol is often not the sole usable result of this production.  Ethanol from corn, for instance, produces a byproduct called Distiller’s Dry Grain, or DDG, that can be used as a highly nutritious feed product for livestock.  This low-cost feed helps save our ranchers on their bottom lines, in addition to the positive effect passed on to them, and all of us, by lowered costs of transportation.

In short, ethanol can bring stability to all three of the economies we care about: the American economy, the rural economy, and our personal economy.”

Next week: Rising Above the Global Competition for Fuels.